Texas Catholic Voice July 2025

ESA Summits

Last week the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, the Texas Private Schools Association and EdChoice co-hosted the 2025 Texas Education Savings Account Summer Summits in Dallas, San Marcos and Houston.

All three of the summits were at maximum audience capacity: 800 participants representing 450 schools who attended these summits in total. School choice experts from across the nation and the Texas Comptroller's policy staff presented at each summit and answered questions from the stakeholders in the audience. We were also  joined by staff members from Sen. Creighton and Rep. Brad Buckley's offices.

Later this month, we will announce more ESA summits we will be hosting across Texas. Stay up-to-date through the monthly TCV editions and other TCCB social media postings for future announcements and updates.

Late last week, the Comptroller released its request for proposal (RFP) for the program contractor position. In this RFP, the anticipated program timeline was released, see below. Please note that the timeline is subject to change.

Anticipated Timeline Updates:

• RFP Proposals Due: July 30, 2025
• Top Proposals Present to CPA: August 15
• Contract Execution: October 16, 2025
• Commencement of Work: October 17, 2025

Fall 2025:

• Begin providing customer service to prospective applicants, providers of educational services, and vendors of educational products.
• Begin identifying and onboarding private schools that will participate with a goal of approving as many schools as possible before student applications open; private school applications should be accepted and screened on a rolling basis thereafter.
• Launch student application portal to begin accepting applications for the 2026-2027 academic year. With a 30-day application window.

Early 2026:

• Coordinate with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to confirm applicant eligibility (the application period must be closed before the prioritization of all acceptable applicants begins).
• Notify applicants of acceptance, waitlisting, or denial.
• Launch a second 30-day application period for the 2026-2027 academic year if the number of eligible applicants is less than available slots.
• Begin screening and approval of applications from education service providers and vendors of educational products.
• Create a list of Comptroller-approved providers of educational services and vendors of educational products and an online method through which Program Participants can purchase goods or services using their Program accounts.

July 2026:

• Receive at least one-quarter of each approved participant’s amount to be transferred from Comptroller to Successful Respondent not later than July 1, 2026.
• Establish trust accounts for each participant’s account.
• Allocate funds to participant accounts as directed by Comptroller.
• Begin payment of allowable expenses for initial participants.

Sine Die Reports & Special Session

During the 89th legislative session 9,082 bills were filed, yet only 1,231 bills passed the legislature (13% passed and the failure rate of 87%). This is significantly lower than last session when 16% of the bills passed.

This session we tracked 1,403 bills in total, and each tracked bill included an analysis statement written by a TCCB staff member. We testified in support of 47 bills in committee hearings throughout the session. Fourteen of the 47 bills that we testified in a committee hearing passed, while 10 of the bills we testified in opposition failed. The total success rate of bills on which the TCCB testified is 55%. This figure only includes bills that received oral or written testimony.

Many other bills we publicly registered our position for the committee to consider also passed. Of the total 380 bills that the bishops supported, 64 passed, while only one bill we publicly opposed passed the legislature.

The success rate for our Advocacy Day bill list is 59%.

Our full report of all TCCB’s tracked bills is available online.

A report that details the outcomes of the bills from Advocacy Day is also on our website.

After signing 1,155 bills and vetoing 28 bills, Governor Greg Abbott called for a special session to begin on Monday, July 21.

Based on the current announced issues, the TCCB will be monitoring only one bill, SB 1278 (Senator Parker), during the special session. Please note that this bill will get a new bill number for the special session. This bill creates an affirmative defense to prosecution that the actor engaged in conduct charged because the actor was coerced, acting under duress, or reasonably feared harm because of being a victim of human trafficking or forced prostitution. The TCCB supports this bill to prevent the prosecution of trafficking victims. Governor Abbott vetoed this bill because he thought it was overly broad and he’s added it to the special session call in order to narrow it’s scope. You can read his proclamation here.